This week in pictures: Chasing the light

Light can make the difference between an ordinary photo and an extraordinary one. The irony is that, especially with natural light, light is fickle and transient. A cloud can obscure light (and sunlight filtered through the very edge of a cloud can be truly magical) and light changes as the sun moves through the sky. I’ve walked by the same scene or object a dozen times and then one day the light will be hitting it just right and suddenly I have to stop and take a picture – like with this classic car. (Okay, truth be told, it was the shiny bits that got me to stop walking and take a good look, but the light made me stay and take a few pictures while I was there.) I love the play of the light on the chrome and the deep shadows and even the way the leaves dapple the light on the hood.

As I was tying to get a good picture of these crab-apples, the light kept coming in and out from behind a cloud. When the sun hit the apples, it seemed to have an almost fairy-tale like vibe to it, but when the sun was behind the cloud it was flat and boring — just some fallen apples. I like the glow from this one, but I wish I’d taken the time to close down my aperture just a bit more to get more of the apples in focus, maybe to about half way toward the tree trunk.

I’d had the idea for this shot in my head for a while and one day during dinner I noticed how the setting sun was hitting the tree and treehouse. Tristan was happy to help me out with this one! I like how the light makes a sort of natural vignette that almost looks like softbox lighting.

Sometimes, it’s about the lack of light! This was me caught in the parking lot of the grocery store last week during a downpour, trying to decide how badly I needed to get into the store to do the weekly shopping. It was such a flat, dreary day that this quick snap taken for the purposes of whining about the rain on Facebook was the only photo I took all day. But it does have a certain abstract je-ne-sais-quoi, right? 😉

This one wasn’t about the light, but I was conscious of it when I put the elements of this one together on the way to Lucas’s first (sniff) day of school this week. I wanted the bus in the background for the school vibe, but the sun was bright and contrasty and his face would have been full of messy shadows, so I pulled him forward just enough to put him in the shade of a conveniently-placed telephone pole.

And this wasn’t about the light at all, but how could I resist posing my menfolk at the crest of the hill at Mooney’s Bay? We are definitely coming back here for more photos!

Alternate shot – I had a hard time choosing between these two for the photo of the day:

And some shots are not about the light at all, but just about catching those sweet moments that you know will be gone in a blink. I blogged about this one earlier in the week.

Ironic post-script to the bike story? Simon’s bike is in the repair shop. Shortly after I wrote the blog post, the gears jammed up again and the chain wouldn’t stay on. Oh well, we’ll get him up and rolling before the snow flies – I hope!

Autumn light is warm and flattering. You should get out and chase some light of your own!

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Hi, I’m Danielle Donders, but my friends call me Dani, and the Internet calls me DaniGirl. I'm a Canadian photographer, blogger, government social media strategist and mom to three boys. Everything else you need to know - and a whole lot more! - is in the blog.

My least favourite of the Anne books so far. I could feel the boys' attention wandering as odd and quirky characters wandered in and out of the narrative. Any book with Anne Shirley in it is a wonderful story by default, though.